Abstract
Mehdi Mohammadpour
Abstract
In the present article, MgO/Ca2Mn3O8 nanocatalyst was used in the transesterification process for production of green fuel from sunflower oil. Besides, the synthesis of the layered nanostructured Ca2Mn3O8 support was carried out by combustion method. The effect of two heating approaches including muffle furnace and microwave irradiation was investigated on the characteristics of calcium-manganese mixed oxide used as the support of the MgO active phase. Both of the synthesized nanocatalysts were characterized by different techniques such as XRD, FESEM and EDX. The nanocatalyst produced by the microwave irradiation combustion method scored the best performance. This nanocatalyst had the highest specific surface area (46.39 m2/g), and better pore volume distribution, too. It was also found that the nanocatalyst converted 96.7% of sunflower seed oil to fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs), and exhibited better reusability in the same operating conditions compared to the sample synthesized with muffle furnace in five runs. This justified the positive influence of microwave irradiation on the catalytic properties.